RakLAW Complaints Handling Policy

We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients. When something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to improve our standards.

If you have a complaint, please contact us on info@raklaw.co.uk with the details.

What will happen next?

1. We will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within two days of receiving it, enclosing a copy of this procedure. In the acknowledgement letter we will set out the person with the overall responsibility for complaints handling.
2. We will then investigate your complaint. This will normally involve passing your complaint to our Client Care Manager Mr Rakesh Prajapati, who will review your matter file and speak to the member of staff who acted for you.
3. Once the complaint has been received and investigated, we will notify you in writing how this complaint will be handled, and we will provide you with a timescale for when the substantive answer will be given. Usually, Mr Rakesh Prajapati will consider if he needs to invite you to a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. If he decides to meet with you, he will do this within 14 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
4. Within three days of the meeting, Mr Rakesh Prajapati will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions he has agreed with you.
5. If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible, Mr Rakesh Prajapati will send you a detailed written reply to your complaint, including his suggestions for resolving the matter, within 21 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
6. At this stage, if you are still not satisfied, you should contact us again and we will arrange for another partner to review the decision.
7. We will write to you within 14 days of receiving your request for a review, confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
8. It should be noted that we must resolve any complaint within 8 weeks from the date the complaint was received by us.
9. If you are still not satisfied, or we have taken longer than the 8 weeks described above, you can then contact the Legal Ombudsman.
10. If having exhausted our own internal complaint handling procedure (as described) you are still not satisfied with our final response to your complaint, you can have the complaint independently looked at by the Legal Ombudsman, who investigates complaints about service issues with lawyers.

The Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them within one year of the date of the act or omission about which you are concerned or within one year of you realising there was a concern. You must also refer your concerns to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of our final response to you.

Information about the Legal Ombudsman Scheme (including who may submit a complaint, the types of complaint that can be considered, the timescales within which a complaint must be submitted, and the procedures that might be used if a complaint is accepted) is published on the Legal Ombudsman's website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk.

The Legal Ombudsman can be contacted by:

• Post: Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough SL1 0EH
• Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
• Telephone: 0300 555 0333

We are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). If you have concerns about an individual solicitor or a firm, such as issues involving dishonesty, taking or losing client money, or treating someone unfairly because of age or another protected characteristic, you can raise these with the SRA.

You can contact the SRA at:

Solicitors Regulation Authority
The Cube
199 Wharfside
Birmingham
B1 1RN

• Telephone: 0370 606 2555
• Email: contactcentre@sra.org.uk

Further information is available at: https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor/

Please note the SRA does not deal with complaints about poor service.